A Toronto journalist friend of mine sent me a startling note today alerting me to the news that Jiggs McDonald—a hockey broadcaster of many achievements including the HHOF (more details below)—is currently stranded in Bangkok along with 80 other Canadian citizens, due to the explosion of political unrest there in recent days.

His family is understandably very afraid, and his daughter Susan DeSimone wrote this in a letter (directed to another journalist) and passed on to me this morning:

We are trying to put pressure on the CDN govt. to get them out of there. Some countries are sending planes into a Thai military base to get their citizens out. So far, there hasn’t been much response from the CDN embassy there. The tour group has asked us to get the word out to journalists, etc. to put pressure on Canada to intervene.

The email address and phone numbers for the Canadian Embassy in Bangkok are noted down at the bottom of this post. Anyone who thinks they can help and who needs additional contact information for the McDonald family, please .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) directly.

Here is the full text of the release that Ms. DeSimone sent out this morning.

Everyone gathered this evening for a quick episode where we discuss Luongo’s early November shutout streak, the third jersey, the Canucks making their film debut, and some making their debut in Manhattan. Third jersey talks, and a whole lot of Wellwood appreciation round out this edition of The Crazy Canucks.

Warning to Leafs fans: There’s a point in the show where I was trying to defend your honour (truly!) but that effort went a bit south when I sorta likened the flood of your jerseys onto the streets of Vancouver last Saturday to some sort of gay pride parade. (whoops…)

I once found it odd how many UK hockey fans there are out there, but not anymore. Over the years I’ve heard a lot from British NHL fans and am no longer surprised at their knowledge of and passion for the game.

The only thing I still find surprising is that such passion exists despite the obstacles they face in trying to enjoy their favorite sport—which is why this might be an interesting option for some.

This morning, SENShobo dropped me a pointer to a press release about ESPN360 in the UK and it’s new online video player:

The CBC Sports Hall of Fame announced Monday that Dick Irvin, Gordon Craig, Tom Fisk, Bob Moir and Fred Walker have been selected for induction this November.

“We are proud to honour these five outstanding individuals and are looking forward to welcoming them as members of the CBC Sports Hall of Fame,” said Scott Moore, executive director of CBC Sports.

Irvin is already a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame (btw, we’ve got a cool HHOF contest going on) and has been retired from broadcasting since 1999. Which is remarkable to me, since I can still hear his voice perfectly in my head. (Have you noticed that about the great hockey broadcasters? You can always remember their voices, even years later.)

For more on Dick Irvin, Stu Hackel at the NY TimesSlap Shot blog did a nice feature on him earlier this year.

I saw that The Puck Stops Here mentioned this earlier, but I thought I’d also pop up the CBC video which announced the winner of CBC’s Hockey Theme contest. The winning tune is titled Canadian Gold. (And I like it. It’ll definitely grow on me.)

Incidentally, while the winner took home $100,000 and major bragging rights for all time, the ‘loser’—the second finalist—wasn’t so lucky. His compensation amounted to a piece of Patrick Roy paraphernalia, a custom-made guitar. Admittedly, it sounds like a cool bit of paraphernalia, but still, it’s Patrick Roy -related.

We’re back. Season three of TCC kicks off with a quick gathering of the crew to has out what to expect for the coming season as well as some cool things going on with each of our various projects. We take a look back as who we’ve lost, the new faces (that we kinda think we know something about but don’t know half as much as we’d like), hash out the who does what for TV and radio play-by-play, and take assignments for new names of the team for show and tell later.

Listen to the show at TCC or just pop it into iTunes. There’s a lot more news as well, so Canucks fans be sure to listen. Also check out J.J.‘s new site CanucksHockeyBlog.com (no more blogspot) where he’s preparing to give away two tickets to the September 23rd preseason game against the Oilers.

The five of us will all be attending that night as well, so maybe we’ll get a chance to pelt the winner with popcorn.

[Brian Burke] started off as GM of the Hartford Whalers, a team that had just made the playoffs for seven consecutive seasons. Once Burke got there, they missed.

But he was much better in Vancouver. There, he won a playoff round. Granted it took six seasons to do so, but geniuses can’t be held to the same standards as everyone else. In those six seasons, he missed the playoffs twice and went out in the first round three times.

Of course, Strachan fails to mention the levels to which Vancouver sucked before Burke came to town, but what the hell—Al is on a roll in this column.

The Hockey Night in Canadatheme contest has drawn a ton of entries—and while rather a lot of the submissions sound more like rejects for upcoming Star Wars movies, there are many entertaining efforts in there as well. (And keep in mind: it’s much easier to criticize these compositions than it is to actually write and submit one, risking obnoxious remarks from hockey fans.)

One entry which caught my attention, I’ve embedded on the video player below. It’s entitled the “Jazzy Hockey Night” and its unlikely composer and performer is 11 year old Addison Leigh of Ajax, ON.

I didn’t even know how to tie my shoes properly when I was 11 years old, so color me impressed.

About Canucks and Beyond

Alanah McGinley has been blogging hockey since 2003 (with a notable gap in time through 2010, kicking it with new baby Lucy while living knee-deep in chaos while reading "parenting for complete idiots" during every spare minute) sharing opinions, rants and not-so-deep thoughts with anyone who will listen.

In addition to writing Canucks & Beyond and helping manage Kukla's Korner, Alanah was one of the founders and co-hosts of The Crazy Canucks Podcast. She has contributed pieces to FoxSports.com and the New York TimesSlapshot blog, as well as other stray destinations in cyberspace.